King Crimson guitarist Robert Fripp and his singer wife Toyah Willcox are still giving fans plenty of ear (and eye) candy on Sundays, this time gracing us with a rendition of the Smashing Pumpkins classic “Bullet With Butterfly Wings.”
It’s been a while since we’ve reported on the frisky couple’s “Sunday Lunch” series, but they’ve been going strong in 2022, mostly delivering covers of punk classics from The Clash, Ramones, and others over the past several weeks. For this weekend’s edition, the pair tackle the Pumpkins’ smash alt-rock hit with their usual musical and visual flair.
Toyah’s risqué see-through top is par for the course for her Sunday performances, but in this case it’s not too far off what original Pumpkins bassist D’arcy Wretzky wore during the band’s 1998 tour in support of Adore. However, Toyah embellishes her outfit with a pair of — you guessed it — butterfly wings.
Fripp, though, is off his game a bit in this one, hitting a few bad notes along the way, and yelling, “Bollocks!”
For most of the pandemic, Toyah and Robert have kept us entertained with their fun takes on rock classics, truly going viral with a rendition of Metallica’s “Enter Sandman” in January 2021. That video, featuring Toyah wearing a revealing top while riding an exercise bike, has racked up nearly 8 million views to date.
Since then, Toyah sported a Catwoman outfit for a rendition of Scorpions’ “Rock You Like a Hurricane,” and has worn a French maid getup (Motorhead’s “Ace of Spades”), a cheerleader costume (Billy Idol’s “Rebel Yell”), a naughty nurse uniform (Alice Cooper’s “Poison”), a mermaid costume (Heart’s “Barracuda”), and body paint (The Prodigy’s “Firestarter”). In one video, Toyah even flashed Fripp during a performance of ZZ Top’s “Sharp Dressed Man.”
At one point, Heavy Consequence asked Black Sabbath legend Tony Iommi about the pair’s bizarre cover of “Paranoid,” and he told us, “I think they’ve gone mad, actually. I think this lockdown has drove them mental.”
As for the real Smashing Pumpkins, they have a few festival gigs lined up for 2022 (tickets available here), after releasing the double album CYR last year.
See Toyah and Robert performing The Smashing Pumpkins’ “Bullet With Butterfly Wings’ in the video below.
